the quest for bangers

Gosh, I'm still tipsy.

Not one to make more of St. Pat's Day than necessary (I'm nowhere near being Irish and think it's mostly lame to pretend to be of a specific ethnic background in the name of booze consumption; I don't need an excuse to drink on a weeknight), last evening I decided to turn tonight's hangout/drinking with an Irishish friend into something a bit more. Dinner and drinks seemed like a much better option than trying to get into any Irish-type bar to pay too much for drinks.

The timing of a communication with my sweet friend Sara resulted in her suggesting a coincidental trip to North Van to the British butcher she'd been wanting to visit. I, as well, had in the past seen reference to said butcher and thought it'd be fun to visit. We agreed we'd venture off the main peninsula for the sausages I wanted for tonight's dinner of bangers and mash.

We both forgot to bring the Translink directions (which, reviewing them now, were actually the least helpful ever and wouldn't have gotten us close enough to the shoppe anyway), so kind of winged it based on what we could collectively remember from the email communication we shared. We sort of got lost, but had a couple of nice diversions from our main goal (truffle purchasing, a visit to Cap Uni, bus transfers...). Eventually we got to the shoppe and I purchased four flavours of sausages for tonight: the Cambridge, the Cumberland, the Pork Apple and the Pork Leek. The eight links for tonight were extremely affordable and I had to stop myself from buying more (I will go back soon, or anytime someone wants to go). We figured out that Translink gave us the wrong directions when we saw a bus that would take us exactly where we wanted to go, so ran for that sucker and shaved at least 40 minutes off our travel time. Live and learn, I guess. The extra time visiting with Sara was rad, so I didn't mind the detours anyway. When we made it back downtown we stopped into the liquor shop across from Waterfront and picked up a couple of interesting beers for the evening and a cheap knock-off of Irish cream for a recipe.

Upon my return home, I started on a new recipe for a stout cake (less butter than the black & tan cupcakes) with an Irish cream icing. Eileen made it over while I was still beating the batter and we both revelled in the beauty of the fluffiness and richness of the batter. It looked like creamy icing, which generally means an awesome cake. Once that was into the oven, I got started on the rest of dinner between shots of Glenlivet and Irish cream. Eileen graciously made the icing while I worked on the savouries. I like turnips in my mashed potatoes, so peeled the crap out of all that, and trimmed some green beans. The sausages had to wait for the cake to bake, but everything smelled amazing by the time Jill and Mark came over, by which time Eileen and I were well on our way to being tipsy and giggly. Even with my poor timing for when each would finish cooking, everything went together so nicely. We each got a half of each sausage link and stuffed ourselves full of the yummy mash. Bangers and mash is easily one of the most kick-ass dinners during these colder months and I will definitely make more of an effort to make it for myself more often. My favourite sausage was the Pork Leek link. So fricking amazing.

Thankfully everyone was willing to tuck into the cake because I have no idea what I'd do with an (almost) entire cake on my own. Can't remember where I got the recipe from, but it was lovely. I substituted chocolate cherry stout for Guinness and the maltiness was quite nice with all the cocoa and cinnamon. Mark went back for three pieces while the other three of us had two. (I actually also threw together a rhubarb sponge cake while the sausages were roasting because I need to use up the rhubarb from my mom pretty quick. It paled in comparison to the stout cake, but would be good with sweetened whipping cream.) After dessert we were all pretty content to just chat and drink for a while.

I'm not sure how much we actually drank, but we finished off the Glenlivet, had the remainder of the chocolate cherry stout I used for the cake (Tin Whistle, really nice, but no Young's Double Chocolate Stout), tried the Brooklyn Dark Chocolate Stout (which was far more bitter than I thought it'd be), polished off the Irish cream, had a couple bottles of Harp's, tucked into the Crown Royal and finished the Pimm's. We were all liquored enough to be chatty and pleased with the evening, which is enough for me. (Today I also discovered that the liquor shop across from Waterfront carries He-Brew, which is good news, indeed! Can't wait to test out The Chosen Beer when next I have enough money to buy it.)

They all got some cake to take home and left me encouraged to plan more dinner parties in the near future. Such fun, and a relatively easy menu with tolerant friends. Tomorrow I'm going to try root beer bundt cake, so anyone want to come over for cake in the next couple of days?